


Getting Warmer

by TippenFunkaport



Series: SPOP Missing Scenes [8]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, POV Glimmer (She-Ra), Romance, Save the Cat, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 5 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24835438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TippenFunkaport/pseuds/TippenFunkaport
Summary: It's only a few hours before they'll be going to rescue Catra and a traumatized Glimmer is having nightmares of having to face Horde Prime again. When she wakes up screaming, the only person she wants to comfort her is still mad at her, their relationship damaged beyond repair.Or is it?---TW: violence, unwanted touching, major character deaths (all in a dream sequence)---If you want...* a Glimbow centric fic set before Save the Cat* space cuddles* traumatized Glimmer* context for the forehead kiss* basically everyone dies horribly (but it's just a dream calm down)*...then this is the fic for you!
Relationships: Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: SPOP Missing Scenes [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877965
Comments: 23
Kudos: 153





	Getting Warmer

_No. Stop. Don_ _’t touch me._ But Glimmer only froze as Horde Prime slid his hand across her cheek and up under her hair. Just like her mom used to.

The comparison made her want to throw up.

Prime smiled, oily and dangerous. Icy shivers crept along her exposed skin but she held herself still. _Breath in, out._

_I am Queen Glimmer of Bright Moon. You will not see me break. I will never give you the satisfaction._

"Is something wrong, your highness?" Prime was so close she could smell the sickly sweet of whatever green bile sloshed through his body.

Glimmer swallowed and willed herself not to gag. She tried not to look at that corpse white face, thin skin under-webbed with green veins. She hated how he made her feel so small. Even though she barely reached Prime's chest, she raised her eyes to meet his as if there was still fire inside her.

Prime chuckled in that infuriating patronizing tone of his. Her body tensed but she crushed her terror down into rage. Her fists instinctively balled for a blast of power she hadn’t been able to summon in weeks.

"Get away from me." Her voice shook and even she wasn't sure if it was fear or anger.

Whatever Prime took it for, he seemed to find it amusing. He laughed, lazy and slow, as if she were a child too helpless to be taken seriously. Her body screamed danger and begged to run but there was nowhere to run to. A single cold tear escaped and trailed down her cheek. No, not now. She sucked in a sharp breath, pushing everything back behind the wall she’d been building for weeks. 

"Now, now, little princess." Horde Prime slid the smooth side of his frigid metal fingernail down her cheek and her body tensed, the pressure just enough that she was never sure if he would hurt her or not. She battled to keep her breathing steady as her heart thud violently against her chest. His hand trailed lower towards her neck and her blood turned to ice. 

Take your hands off me! She wanted to scream it at him, wanted to yank herself out of his reach but she couldn't speak, couldn't move, was only helpless observer as he continued his slow trace of her jaw line. It was the quiet amusement on his face that was the worst of it, the mockery of kindness.

Then suddenly something shifted in his face, something fierce and triumphant and in a moment he had raised his hand and slashed his nails across her face. She gasped. The pain was sharp and real, and she could feel the gouges stretching across her face weeping blood down her face.

A blink. She was somewhere else. A screen. Table. The dining room. Prime was gone but still she was frozen, the cuts across her face burning like fire.

I will not break. He cannot make me.

The pain was impossible.

Without warning, the screen in the back of the flared to life. It was what he had shown her before and it wasn’t. Her friends were fighting. No… losing. It was too much, too much horror all at once, but her eyes fell on each detail in cruelly vivid detail. 

Adora lying unmoving in a dark puddle.

Catra, somehow there too, reaching for Adora before one of Prime's soldiers blasted her and her body lay smoking and still. 

Her father, slumped against a blasted pile of rock, a scorch mark across his chest.

Her mom, lying facedown in a dark crater, her wings bent at an unnatural angle.

Fire and screams and destruction.

Her friends. The princess alliance. The rebellion. Her whole world.

Beaten. Broken. Gone.

Prime’s voice hissed in her ear, so near it sent a chill slithering down her spine. "This is your doing."

And he was right. It was her fault. Everyone and everything she loved was gone and it was all her fault.

Then the cuts weren't just on her face but all over her body, her blood gushing now, everything she had pouring out onto the floor, pooling into something dark underneath her, molten shadows like Shadow Weaver's dark magic. Heavy tendrils dragged at her limbs, weighting her body until it made no sense to fight it. She had no heartbeat, no breath, hardly any life left at all.

She would just let it take her. It was what she deserved after what she’d done. 

Wait. What was that? A flash of gold across the screen. Hope was a surge of air and her heart lurched back to life. Someone was still fighting! Then she recognized him and it was like seeing the Etherian sun after months of hopeless space.

Bow! He was still alive! She watched as he loosed arrow after arrow into the bots.

"Bow!" she screamed at the screen without meaning to and, impossibly, he stopped as if he'd heard her.

"Glimmer?"

How long had it been since she'd heard that voice, the one she'd know absolutely anywhere? She let out a broken sob. "Bow, I'm here!"

He turned then, looked straight at her through the screen and for a moment she thought he might smile at her. But then his face froze horribly and she watched in horror as darkness spread across the heart on his chest-plate as he sagged, skewered on the end of a Horde bayonet.

“NO!” Because of her. Her fault. Just like everything else.

And then everything was pain and bright white light and she was dying, she was screaming, she was--

Awake.

For a moment she lay still in the dark, her heart hammering against her chest until it hurt to breath. Her ears buzzed with rushing blood but her face was whole under her trembling fingers. Beyond, something hummed quietly, a monotonous electronic sound.

Prime's ship! That same slamming realization every time she woke and then remembered that she was still here, still trapped. Weeks and weeks of waking hope immediately followed by crushing reality. Despair pressed against her chest. But they were always watching. She couldn’t let them see. She rubbed her face dry on her pillow. 

Wait. The pillow. It was different. Smooth synthetics and softness to the scratchy rigid things on Prime’s ship. Her eyes flew open.

Vague rectangular shapes loomed in the darkness around her. But Prime's ship was always blinding with that sterile light. And the sound of it was different, no constant pulsing pressing in around her. She forced herself upright, her limbs aching with tension, trying to fight the last of the nightmare's grip.

She remembered now. Mara's ship. Catra's sacrifice and then the crushing pressure of being thrown into nothing and being certain she was going to die like this, her body exploding, gasping for air that wasn't there. Space crushing her from outside, ice stabbing into her lungs, her own heart bursting from within and then there was air again and her friends, her beautiful friends, alive and whole. She was safe.

Except she wasn't. Her friends, her planet was still dying because of what she did. And in a few hours they were going back. Back to Prime and his prison and his touch and his patronizing smile. She drew in a sharp breath and swallowed back a sob.

Of course she would do it. For Adora. For Catra too, who she owed her life. She would do anything her friends wanted from her. Anything to repay them for still loving her and coming to get her even after everything. Anything to make up for what she'd done.

But the thought of going back after she'd finally got free. She shivered and found her blanket at the base of her bunk. Even with it on, she couldn’t remember ever being so cold. She wasn't sure if spaceships were actually chilly or if this ice was just a part of her now.

She could go find Adora. And what? Burden her friend with more when she already had the weight of the whole planet on her shoulders. No. She couldn’t.

If only… But she sunk back onto her bunk, the thin mattress doing little to cushion the hard metal frame beneath. She rolled over to face the wall and hugged her legs to her chest. A tear slid down her cheek and wet the smooth pillow. 

Stop it! You are stronger than this. Even though she knew rationally that Prime was no longer watching her every move, she reflexively swabbed the tears with the side of her fist.

What was that? Someone _was_ watching. Bow. Her heart did a painful flip.

She didn't move, didn't look, didn't have to. She recognized his step, felt the space of him as he stood silhouetted in the doorway of the hold. How long had he been there?

For an age she held her breath, hoping he would go and hoping he would stay in equal measure. Because he was the only person in the world she wanted to see right now but if he was still mad at her, if she had to face that cold look right now, she wasn't sure she could survive it.

"Glimmer?" That voice she'd know anywhere. It was so gentle.

She didn't answer. Couldn't answer. It was taking everything she had to hold back the wall while new cracks fractured across the surface.

_Please stay. I can't be alone right now._

_Please go. I don't want you to see me like this._

Heart shaped rubber soles and tentative steps. He had come closer but he was still too far away for the people they used to be. 

"Are you OK?" He didn't sound angry now. How had he known she needed him? The thought that somehow he'd just known buoyed something like hope in her chest. But it sunk like stone at what sounded like irritation in his voice when he next spoke. "I know you're awake. I heard you shout. And I want..." He made a small choking sound and stopped. What he wanted hung unsaid between then, swallowed up by the darkness. 

Of course. She must have called out in her sleep.

"Bad dream." It was a croak and she hated herself for it. Wanted to answer in the sure clear voice of someone who didn't need anything, especially from someone who could let one mistake destroy years of good between them.

One, absolutely massive, colossal mistake. _No, no, not now._ The wall inside her shuddered but she held it up by sheer force of will. _Keep it together._

"I'm fine." It was sharper than she intended but why was he even here? Why did he have to be so sweet, so like her Bow when they both knew everything between them was broken and beyond repair?

A traitorous sob bubbled up into her throat and she swallowed it back down. Bow made a ghost of a sound, as if he'd opened his mouth to speak and then decided against it.

_Just go. I don't deserve your sympathy._

And then he did go and every footfall that took him farther away yanked at what was left of her heart until it was near to breaking.

For what seemed like an age she lay in the dark and listened to the merciless whir of the engines and tried to get herself back together. She'd done it so many nights on Prime's ship, brushing feelings away and plugging leaks. Telling herself hopeful lies of rescue and happy endings to counter a future that looked bleak and blank as the white walls of that cursed ship. And now? When she was free and with her best friends again, a thing she didn't even dare to consider in her most hopeful moments, she realized there was no happy ending. Everything was still broken and she was holding herself together for a happier future that probably didn't exist.

Maybe she should just get up. She could hand Entrapta tools or something, keep her mind busy. Entrapta's the one person on this ship who absolutely wouldn’t make her talk about feelings. She had almost decided to go and see if the nerd princess was awake when she heard his step in the corridor.

Twice he stopped, each for an agonizing moment when she was almost certain he would turn back. Then he was there, moving across the metal floor and Glimmer braced herself for another awkward interaction, another reminder she'd ruined everything. He was right behind her now and she could feel the space of him. 

_I'm asleep. See?_ She crewed her eyes shut and tried to slow her breathing but her heart was racing knowing he was so near. He was watching her. She always knew when he was watching her.

 _Why are you here?_ She thought of a million things to say and said none of them. What felt like eons stretched while the ship hummed between them. Was he even still there? Suddenly she didn't trust her own senses.

Maybe he'd gone.

Maybe he'd never come at all. A leaden feeling settled in her chest.

Then the thin blanket slid across her arm as he lifted it and crawled in beside her. It didn't make sense, it couldn't be real. They’d talked about this. Bow was mad at her. Bow needed time. Things between then were broken and now-- Her heart stopped as he pressed himself against her outline.

It was one thing to collapse together after a strategy session ran late or to find you'd lolled onto your best friend's shoulder while you slept. There had been nights after her mom died when she fell asleep sobbing into his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair.

But this was different. Intentional.

She’d regularly shared a bed with Adora too but she never seemed to wake with Adora's arm around her or Adora's body spooned around hers, even if there was a time when she would have wanted exactly that. No matter how far apart they all were when they fell asleep, she and Bow always seemed to wake tangled together. They just seemed to gravitate to each other in their sleep with something like magnetic pull.

Without a word, he put a hand on her shoulder, sure but firm pressure. Even through the weird soap they'd found among Mara's stuff, he smelled like home. She was used to the rhythmic sound of his snores, to being lulled to sleep by the gentle rhythm of the rise and fall of his chest. And having him this close right now was unknotting something so twisted and tight inside her it was almost painful.

She wanted to say something, wanted to ask what this meant but whatever was happening between them right now was fragile and she dared not break it. It was the darkness, the silence. Like a game they were playing. As long as they didn't speak, didn't look at each other, they could pretend. It was a moment out of time where they were Bow and Glimmer as they always had been or maybe as they could have been if only she hadn't...

And then her eyes started leaking again, a hot stream of shame and grief and guilt that she couldn't stop this time, not matter how much she crammed her fist to her eyes and tried to swallow it back. She fought to put the wall back up, to brush it all away as she'd been doing for so many weeks but then she felt his hand. His fingers interlocked with hers and he tugged her hand gently away from her eyes. He tucked their linked hands against her middle and pulled her against him. Where their bodies touched, it was cozy fire and for the first time since she'd left Etheria, she felt warm. It was like something clicked into a place, a gaping void filled exactly as it should be.

The sob took her unawares. A gulp of sorrow that spilled out of her before she could stop it and then it all came undone and there wasn't a wall in the world that could stop it all from rushing out at once. The weeks of tilting terror of being on Prime's ship when every moment felt like it might be her last. Her mom was gone. Her father, alive somehow, but for how long? Her friends, her planet, her whole world on fire and no way to put it out. The squirming guilt that this was all her fault and that would never change, even if they did manage to pull off the impossible. And, most of all, that she had lost his trust, the person who mattered most to her.

She couldn't sweep it away, couldn't stopper it up. Months of sorrow and fear came crashing out of her and she couldn't stop it. She tried not to make a sound but her body shook with sobs as if all the feelings she'd buried deep inside her were being ripped out of the ground at once.

Beside her, Bow shifted and for a terrible moment she thought she'd done it, driven him away, and now he'd leave her to be pathetic on her own. But instead he pulled her still closer, his thumb sliding softly over her hand still clasped tightly in his. She felt his nose nuzzle down into the back of her neck. Warm puffs of breath caressed her neck. They had never been this close before, like they were one. She wanted this forever but they only had this moment.

She felt something hot dot her neck and realized she wasn't the only one crying. She was a mess of gasping sobs but she couldn't stop, all her control was completely gone. And yet still he stayed, like a tether keeping her from falling into oblivion. He took a shuddering breath against her and she wanted to turn to him, to hold his face in her hands and wipe his tears with her thumbs and kiss his face. Not like a friend at all. The realization hit her like a blaster to the chest, a cruel joke of the universe, that she would realize now what he meant to her when she had already all but lost him.

_Oh, Bow. I’m so sorry. And… I love you._

_I love you._

She couldn't say it so she thought it at him, willed him to understand. And as he nuzzled his face down deeper against her shoulder, his face wet, and for a wild moment she thought he'd understood.

***

She woke to a voice from nowhere and everywhere. There was something she had to do, somewhere… Glimmer winced as the lights in the bunk room rose to daylight levels and threw her arm over her eyes. She fought for consciousness as sleep tried to drag her back down.

Then the voice resolved into Darla’s merciless monotone declaring Horde Prime’s ship was almost in range. Oh. Right. She expected it to fill her with the usual icy dread but instead there was just a kind of numb resignation. Her head ached. She rubbed the crust from her eyes and they burned. When she rose to her feet, she could feel the ghost of last night’s tension in her limbs.

It had to be hours since her nightmare. She’d actually slept, real restful sleep, for the first time in weeks. She had no idea when she'd cried herself out, when she'd crashed into exhaustion. She only knew that she was completely alone.

It had been a dream then. A wonderful dream, but still. A present from her sub-conscious to make up for the nightmare. She felt hollow, scooped out but there was more important things to think about. Once she was dressed, she splashed her face in the tiny washroom, brushed her teeth and, even though the water on this ship tasted weird and old, she forced herself to drink two full glasses. Blegh. Her mouth still felt like the Crimson Waste but that’s what she got for letting herself cry all the moisture out of her body.

Horde Prime's face loomed in her mind unbidden and she felt that dull acceptance that she was probably going to die settle back into her chest. The thought didn't chill her as much as it did last night. Even though it hadn't been real, the fire of her dream was still burning warm inside her.

When she reached the airlock, her spacesuit and Adora’s were the only ones left on the rack. Of course. Adora wouldn’t be needing hers. Panic for her friend fluttered in her throat but she swallowed it back down. She touched Adora’s suit before starting to pull hers on. They’d done a dry run of the whole plan yesterday and she was grateful for the distraction of trying to remember how all the various buckles and snaps went together.

She’d nearly got it figured out when Entrapta burst in, downright giddy at the prospect of seeing what kind of tech was on Horde Prime's ship. She asked Glimmer if she’d seen a purple First One’s chip— she hadn’t— but the rest of her running monologue didn't seem to be for the benefit of anyone but herself.

Adora followed close behind. She looked grim but determined. Glimmer didn’t stop her when she insisted going over the plan for the millionth time. She knew her friend well enough to know she took comfort in the plan, even though their plans never seemed to work like they wanted them to.

“It’ll be fine. We’ve got this!” Glimmer was going for an upbeat, cheerful tone but Adora didn’t look convinced by the performance. Or maybe she was just worried about Catra. Not for the first time, Glimmer found herself hoping against hope Adora’s old friend was even still alive. As much for Adora’s sake as Catra’s.

"OK. It’s almost time. You ready?" It was the first time Adora had looked at her properly. Glimmer knew she looked a mess, every surface in this place was happy to reflect back her puffy red eyes. But she forced a smile as if she was still charged full of glitter magic and gave her friend a thumbs up.

"You know it!" This time her voice almost sounded cheerful enough to fool herself. Adora gave her a half smile and nodded, satisfied.

“Thank you. For… doing this.” Adora pulled her into a hug that Glimmer refused to think of as goodbye. When they separated, Adora was wiping at her eye. "OK. I'm going to take the helm. Let's do this."

Glimmer dutifully stood with her arms extended while Entrapta fussed and adjusted the various tubes and tanks built into her space suit. Entrapta had just dubbed her “satisfactory,” which was not particularly comforting, when she heard the shush of the sliding door.

Bow. He was already in his spacesuit and she flushed at the memory of him just like that, the first thing she'd seen after being hurtled out of nothingness. Her gaze flicked up to his face and an explosion of warmth blossomed in her chest when he caught her eye.

He gave her a small smile and his eyes crinkled in the corners and she knew. Her pulse raced, numbness giving way to a kind of elation. It… hadn’t been a dream? He really had been there last night and that meant whatever had passed between them had really happened. And if that was true, then maybe things weren’t as broken between them as she’d feared.

Something burned within her now, fire and determination. He sat on a low bench built into wall, checking the straps on his boots. When he glanced up at her, her insides did a flip.

Darla announced their approach, and Entrapta was poking her ponytails through her helmet, yelling that they had to get out, had to get into position on the underside of the ship. Bow was reaching for his helmet, about to pull it on when Glimmer put her hand on his sleeve. She could barely feel anything beneath the thick glove and suit sleeve but he turned to look at her and the soft look in his eyes warmed her even in the frigid air of the airlock.

"Bow?" She hesitated. So wanted to thank him, wanted to tell him what last night had meant to her, wanted to tell him how she felt, wanted to talk to him about everything and nothing forever the way they always had. But these were things worth doing right and there was no time. The countdown to the airlock opening had begun.

Before she could think about it, she leaned down and kissed his forehead. It was only a peck, a second of touch, but he looked up at her and smiled and she knew he understood what it meant.

To be continued.

A promise for something more in a better future when they had time for quiet moments.

Without another word, they both put on their helmets and joined Entrapta by the airlock doors. The doors cracked open and there was space, cold and dark and unforgiving. But beside her, Bow took her one hand and Entrapta her other and that made it feel both that much warmer and brighter.

A kind of nervous anticipation was building inside of her, pushing out the fear. They would pull this off. Of course they would. They always did, didn’t they?

The space between the doors widened into a starry gash and they moved forward together, leaping off the edge of the door into the expanse beyond. As her body orientated to the weightlessness, she almost drifted away but felt Bow on her right side tugging her back and into position. He smiled at her again, a real smile. Maybe they weren't what they were yet but they were certainly getting warmer.

And there was no way she wasn't getting through this to see what happened next.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fan fiction I have posted EVER in my life so let me know what you think of it and PLEASE let me know if there's a tag or TW I should add because I have no idea what I'm doing. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments are always hugely appreciated no matter how long after posting it is!
> 
> Visit my Tumblr for asks, fic updates and misc thoughts. <https://tippenfunkaport.tumblr.com/>


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